The Wizard In The Water

Published 19 July 2020

Slow exposure photograph of Scale Force
A waterfall. Or a wizard holding his staff, in the water. Take your pick.

The highest waterfall in the Lake District sits at the north western corner of the National Park, a short way from an expanse known as Crummock Water.

Scale Force is rather splendid waterfall. And a famous one too. Finer people than me have sought to describe it. For example, one William Wordsworth declared that Scale Force was

“a fine chasm, with a lofty, though but slender, fall of water”

His friend, Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote

“Scale Force, the white downfall of which glimmered through the trees, that hang before it like the bushy hair over a madman’s eyes.”

Although my favourite must be from 19th century poet Letitia Elizabeth Landon who wrote in her poem Scale Force, Cumberland that

“It sweeps, as sweeps an army down the mountain side,
With the voice of many thunders,
Like the battleā€™s sounding tide”.

Me? I reckon it looks like a wizard in a flowing robe, holding a staff. Especially when you photograph it using those fancy pants camera settings that make the water look like it’s flowing continuously like strands of white silk, rather than in individual, splashy droplets as it actually falls.

But then, perhaps that’s just me.

The Wizard stands guard.

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